The Way Home
by saltwater star
Summary: For the summer when time almost stopped; the bridge between their worlds that never really existed. ::Fabia x Shun::
1. Early June

:the way home:

- o1; Early June -

But oh, your smiles are like spindles of silver weaved into sunsets.

_._Shun x Fabia_._

_..._

(the wind and his princess

the star child and her knight.)

_let's be blissfully in love because it's full of_

_angst & humor_

_and just a little bit of romance._

/

She didn't look like his adolescent self's depiction of a dream girl did, but maybe it was okay; sometimes purple twilight stained her blue tresses a dark and closer red. And while she wasn't quite demure, she was noble, and it contrasted with his simplistic life of monochrome in a beautifully fitting way.

Her smiles to him were not sisterly. When she looked up at him from beneath her lashes her smile was soft and strong all at once, rather than expectant and hesitant. And when she held his hand he felt her palms were marked by both jewels and scars.

Velocity was a staircase to him, the speed of light was his default setting and there were only a dream's worth of people that had ever gotten you to slow down. But red supergiants and bubblegum holograms didn't instill him with the same adolescent sort of _fluttering _that your princess did anymore.

They understood underneath their superficial grins; but sad brown eyes still followed his delayed movements on the monitor, and he asked himself silently how Miss Alice could expect him to love her when he became older too and knew better.

\\\

Thinking back, he realized that he fell in love with Fabia on a sticky, sweltering June afternoon, when she grabbed his arm and launched him into the still still air. The screech of cicadas sounded like laughter when he fumbled the landing, breath and grace and rationality stolen by her emerald pride.

"You're good," he managed to say, carefully preventing his tone from fluctuating. And her shoulders trembled from a blend of physical exertion and a restrained ice cream smile as she kept the alignment of her features perfectly professional.

She tossed her hair over her shoulder in a princessy sort of way, because anyone would be lying if they said she wasn't something special, and she knew it. Even so, her expression was good-natured when she replied: "You're not so bad, yourself."

/

The shadows cast by her crossed legs mirrored that of an earthen girl's when she observed the most insignificant things with an exhale of awe. But then she pointed to jade vases and orchids, china plates and tabletops, floor cushions and little gold statues, and she said "Tell me what this is," with the perfectly measured sort of innocence and regality that only a star child can manage.

Instead of his accustomed sideways looks or stoic silence, he found himself answering her persistent questions, and something close to a smile curved his mouth when she laid a palm on his forearm, unimposing.

He wondered if the heat was getting to his head, or if it was just her.

\\\

It was stupid and awkward and uncoordinated when, in the middle of training, he messily deflected a blow aimed at his shoulder and nervously forced out a "Do you want to go see a movie with me sometime?"

He felt like the most foolish person on both his planet and hers because, first of all, he didn't even like movies, and second of all, _he didn't get nervous_. And she was looking at him through her lashes and he would have no objections if the earth were to suddenly swallow him up.

Then she blinked and said, "What's a movie?"

"Never mind," He mumbled, and drove a fist towards the sleeping sky.

/

Condensation from the steel bars collected on her palms, and she offered a slow half-smile when she caught him looking. The sunlight settled around the two of them (or maybe only her) with a sort of ethereal radiance; her electromagnetic tiara sparkled with an invisible glow.

And he knew he was head over heels (as far head over heels as he could be, anyway) because he thought she looked gorgeous with a flushed sunburnt complexion and hair matted to her sweaty skin.

He realized he wanted to kiss her, and directed your glance elsewhere as his heart started beating in that erratic way that signifies that one hasn't completely grown up.

That was when she tilted her head and leaned in and affixed him with a serious expression that almost looks mischievous for a split-second.

And then she grabbed ahold of his forearm. "You never said training was finished for the day," She smirked, before stepping forwards and throwing him in the air with all the momentum she could gain in two seconds of a brow furrowed in concentration and his unguarded eyes.

The ground separated itself from him and he wanted to sigh from the irony; because that girl really did have him head over heels. Literally.


	2. Mid July

:The Way Home:

- o2, Mid July-

Your shadow is my light, your hollow heart is my soul.

.Fabia x Shun.

…

(the girl who learned how to live

the boy who learned how to love.)

_i try and i try and i try_

_but i still can't fathom this feeling._

\

Sometimes she was scared of the solar life, energy and nitrogenoxygencarbonhydrogen, because those things were living and breathing.

Her sister's palace was built on statistics, the measure of cruelty and blood trails and thousands of lifetimes' worth of currency that disappeared en route to well-being. Real life, the pain and misery and the warmth of a steady heartbeat, was so new and surprising that Shun might as well have been a ghost, something supernatural and nonsensical.

She remembered that he was the first person she let herself truly smile in front of. It was the kind of smile that belonged to happiness, toothy and lopsided and ugly and beautiful. She remembered, too, that he was the first person who made her realized that she was _living _and not just _existing _- not because of the dirt on her skin and the sharp sting of sprains, brute training was not her unfamiliar, but because of the fluttering in her pulse and the swell of light in her heart.

There were theories but no answers, daydreams but no resolutions, and the shadows on the eastern walls grew longer and longer as the sun's orange plasma stretched out further and further.

And she lived.

/

Sometimes he was scared of warm hues, feelings and emotions and claustrophobia-inducing pursuits of happiness.

He didn't function like other people did, on a steady income of human interactions.

And he really didn't have much to say until she _smiled _for the first time and her smile wasn't even that stunning, not like Miss' shy sentimental one or the pink ghost's sultry inviting grin, but to him it was the most beautiful thing; and suddenly his noncommittal breezy thoughts were tied down with a common weight: the warm sense of serenity that overcame him whenever he saw her face.

The first emotion he felt in full (that wasn't loneliness or resentment or _fear_) was love.

\\\

That day she was covered in dirt and bruises but her eyes were vibrant and he felt so dull, so dull in comparison.

She popped open a soda can with purposeful loudness - she did that ever since he showed her how - and looked at him with flowery eyes, like she had so many times before, and it struck him like it always did.

Settling on the ground legs akimbo, a crooked princess, she brought the soda to her lips for a brief moment before offering it to him.

He hardly considered drinking from the same cup to imply any sort of…_romance_, but she made him feel like such a fumbling adolescent, that girl.

The lacy moral compass had been a lady. The vapid showstopper had been a woman.

She was, heritage aside, just a girl.

And it comforted him, because he was merely a boy.

He took the soda and drank, the urge to grimace at the coarse fizzy texture forgotten in light of the ghost of her kiss on the metal can.

/

He was used to looking before leaping, to calculating, and it's _all wrong, all wrong _when the words tumble forth like a butchered script: "I love you."

She didn't even blink; just twisted to face him fully, face all lit up as she uttered the standard expression of gratitude.

He wondered if maybe the phrase was used differently, more easily, more casually on her planet, so when she leaned forward and kissed him, chastely and royally, shock traveled through him like panic. His heart clenched painfully from happiness that he wasn't used to feeling.

His hand clumsily took hers, and even if they weren't star-crossed or even beautiful, he'd leave anyone in either of their whole wide worlds for her. A warning cautious voice in his head nagged over this newfound weakness and he ignored it studiously, pulling her closer with the strong awkward sense of inexperience that euphoric adolescent embraces induce.

And for a moment, time lagged for his desperate hope that this would be their forever.


End file.
